ANCIENT GREEK HANDLING SESSION & BEING IN ROLE AS PETROS, THE OLYMPIC PENTATHLETE...

 Ancient Greek Handling Session & Being In Role As A Pentathlete…

I had been handed a box of what amounted to superfluous and broken artefacts from ancient Greek territories, items which would never be displayed to the public by the Archaeology Department of Birmingham’s Museum.

The visiting children would be able to handle the artefacts with great care during teaching sessions and I soon wound those sessions around a fictitious athlete called Petros. On many occasions, I was in role as Petros, chatting about my experiences as a pentathlete in the ancient Olympic Games and using the artefacts as my belongings, asking the pupils questions about them and revealing how they were used in my household.

THE ACTION IMAGES WERE TAKEN FOR THE SCHOOLS LIAISON WEBSITE...

As Petros, I showed the children how a javelin and discus were thrown, using the modern equivalents as props and also how wrestling and running a short race (the stadion, around 180 metres) were integrated into the event. However, what the kids seemed to appreciate most was when I performed a standing long jump across the floor of my teaching room.

THE STANDING LONG JUMP START...

When I saw an image of myself leaping I was surprised at the height I had achieved, so it must have been rather a spectacular moment in the teaching session. The jumper carried two weights called halteres which I had secured modern replicas of and the swinging of them aided longer standing jumps. It is probable that the athlete took five such leaps in each jumping attempt… 

DEMONSTRATING THE LONG JUMP...

I also cut out a thin leather strip, or thong, an amentum with which to demonstrate how it would have been attached to a javelin and also the athlete’s fingers, so that when released, the missile would spin and thus travel further. Typically, spinning an American football or a rugby ball works by a similar principle, as do bullets from guns, which twist against a spiral cut onto the insides of barrels, which spin them as they exit.

USING A MODERN SCHOOL JAVELIN TO SHOW HOW A THONG WAS ATTACHED...

HOLDING A REPLICA DISCUS...

As for the wrestling, I would tell the kids that anything was allowed except biting, killing the opponent and gouging out his eyes… I also said that because of my size, I had to be quick and so crouched very low in order to spring upwards and unbalance my opponents and knock them down for a ‘fall’. That ruse often worked well in ancient times for the smaller pentathletes, I believe… 

So, I had a tunic made, off the right shoulder, which therefore made visible a scar I have. I would tell the children, in role that it was from an injury in battle, when a javelin tip glanced from my shoulder. That, more than anything else seemed to engage the children so that they began to believe that I really was Petros, 2000 years old and chatting to them in a museum…

DISCUSSING THE SCAR...

The artefacts they saw and handled were simple, including two coins which it was believed were actually 2000 year old counterfeit pieces. A couple of oil lamps were passed round too, one being quite enclosed to prevent some of the oil evaporating and to deter mice or insects from getting inside. The other lamp was flatter, with two spouts for wicks, more open than the other style with a hole through the centre, creating a channel around the edge for the oil to sit in. That one had likely been made to slip easily onto a raised stand.

THE TWO OIL LAMPS...

There was a terracotta bull, made in a mould, still with a touch of the original red paint on it, plus a couple of figurines of women, one remaining as just the head, the other missing its lower legs. It was suggested that the head was actually found at Pompeii of all places. More red paint could be seen on that artefact…

THE BULL...

THE TERRACOTTA HEAD...

THE FIGURINE...

A marble hand from a statue, missing the smallest finger was good to fit into the fictional Petros’ story as being made by a sculptor to look like the athlete’s daughter’s hand.

A terracotta tortoise was a popular artefact with the visitors, despite its head being damaged. Traces of brown paint could be seen on that…

The most attractive item was a jug, an OINOCHOE, made in the red figure style, which was decorated by the head of a woman wearing a headdress.

THE OINOCHOE...

A flat dish was also passed round, which contained scored floral motifs, however a small bronze mirror and a lead slingshot bullet, which was fired by spinning it from a sling, were the very special pieces to show the pupils. I had a Roman bullet made from clay too, which looked like a small egg and I featured both bullets in my Greek sessions

THE DISH...

THE BRONZE MIRROR...

Often messages were inscribed on such bullets, such as ‘I HOPE THIS KILLS YOU’, something which continues to this day of course, with cynical messages being painted on bombs to be dropped upon enemy forces…  

THE LEAD BULLET...

THE TERRACOTTA BULLET...

There was also a worksheet for the children to use in Gallery 32, although the collection of Greek artefacts there was small and largely uninteresting, even though an incongruous model of Athens’ Acropolis sat rather obscurely in the centre of the room at that time…   

Dave Symons, a curator, certainly wasn’t happy to hand over the artefacts originally but one day he saw me working with my Egyptian items and thought that the session was really good, so that he soon sent me copious notes about the Greek and Roman artefacts he had been told to provide. We got on really well after that because he felt that what I was doing was so worthwhile…

HOLDING THE REPLICA LONG-JUMPING WEIGHTS...

Breakages? A few rare accidents were experienced but we were always able to repair those but once, a child stole the Greek slingshot bullet… The accompanying teacher was horrified of course and she was someone I knew from Heathfield Primary School in Handsworth, the site which used to be a maternity home and actually where I was born. 

She held an investigation in the lunch area after my session had finished and the bullet was subsequently found, dumped inside a waste bin…

NEXT: teaching about the ancient Romans & being the Centurion, Petronius Fortunatus…

BEING AYLMER FOLIOT AT BLAKESLEY HALL, BIRMINGHAM & BEING FEATURED BY RADIO WM IN 1985...

 As Aylmer Foliot @ Blakesley Hall, Birmingham…

In the mid-1980s I was asked to play the role of the historical character Aylmer Foliot, one of the 17th century owners of Birmingham’s Blakesley Hall. I would simply wear my Sir Thomas Holte costume but be Aylmer… 

Ridiculously, I had never visited Blakesley Hall prior to teaching for the Schools Liaison Department of Birmingham Museums, despite having once taught at Blakesley Hall Primary School!

The Swan Shopping Centre…

One appearance as Aylmer was to be just up the road from Blakesley Hall at the Swan Shopping Centre, Yardley, sited just off the main A45 Coventry Road. Art teacher Wendy Roberts, in role as Foliot’s wife was to accompany me to a shop, hired for the day by Radio West Midlands, which would basically be a jolly for the locals to take part in. We would be interviewed and of course those present would find out more about their locality’s fine Blakesley Hall.

Clearly, Blakesley Hall was a gem in the Yardley area, along with the parish church and so Wendy, who was teaching at the Hall as well as in the city centre’s Art Gallery, was invited along to add a touch of colour and history to the live broadcast. I was invited too because Gyn Freeman, Stuart Roper and her Radio WM team had met me at Aston Hall and knew that I would likely bring some humour to the experience…

It turned out to be a bizarre morning because our cameo appearance was rather short, being interviewed before and after the 11am news bulletin. According to Stuart, the folks in the crowded shop were totally ‘stunned’  by our arrival in costume accompanied by a fanfare and of course we milked their awe… 

WENDY ROBERTS AND MYSELF...

Invited onto a stage, I turned Stuart as if he was a servant: “Wouldst thou help me?” He grumbled but obliged…

I then suggested that my wife Barbara was suffering with back pain but Stuart commented that she was likely suffering more with being my wife… I responded with, “I am not a cruel man but thy hand is in danger…” This referred of course to the bloody hand on the Holte family crest, which the Radio WM team had seen on their visit to Aston Hall.

Stuart continued to harass me with comments about our horses being in the car-park but I continually and patiently corrected his error, mentioning that surely he meant in the ‘stables’… I was then asked to ‘broadcast’ a message to my workers back at Blakesley Hall and spoke into what was referred to as a ‘microphone’. Gingerly I suggested that despite the rain, I fully expected my servants to be going about their business as usual, or there would be no extra food provided for them during Whitsuntide…

I made some comment about usually gathering news through gossip or reading from a scroll, or even via a town crier’s bellowing voice, but not through the strange things spread across Gyn’s and Stuart's heads. After the news had finished, about which of course I just had to ask where the sound had been coming from, I was interviewed live about what I had made of what I had heard. Put on the spot, fortunately I was able to comment upon one item about teachers wanting more pay, suggesting in role that all teachers deserved paying very well.  

Stuart said the pay-rise would be for teachers’ beer money but I instantly retorted, indignantly: “Schoolteachers, Sir, do not drink beer…” He then asked me, “What time’s the horse?” I replied, “Ah, there’s no answer to that…”

Blakesley Hall visit…

The second appearance I made as Aylmer was at Blakesley Hall itself, when Gyn Freeman’s team covered one of Wendy’s teaching sessions as Barbara Foliot. I was to be used in a continuity role, being interviewed whilst the visiting children were involved in several activities with Wendy, such as pomander and carrot preserve making.

GYN FREEMAN INTERVIEWS WENDY, FAR RIGHT, AS I LOOK ON, FAR LEFT...

This worked well because clearly the WM team would have struggled to fill those changeover segments, so I was asked a variety of questions about living in the Hall. However, I had another agenda, for I knew that one member of the WM team often liked a tot of alcohol in the mornings, having detected it on his breath at Aston Hall the previous December…

When asked about the Hall, I reported that certainly the beams were weakening a little within the house and work was needed to correct the problem but then I sent Stuart out to look after the horses, for he seemed to have ‘no shining of the eyes’ and appeared to be suffering from ‘a lack of sleep’.

I OFFER GYN A REMEDY TO CURE STUART'S WIND...

One of the children, playing the part of Richard Smalbroke was asked by Wendy to choose a girl to be his wife during a brief session in which a family tree was being discussed but Richard (the boy’s real name, actually) didn’t like any of his classmates and so I suggested that he chose a girl for her wealth, although the one he finally picked was because he considered her ‘ferocious’… 

Later Gyn asked me whether I knew a cure for Stuart’s lack of sleep and I came up with the boiling of bruised dill seeds, mixing them with wine and sniffing the concoction. Also I advised perhaps drinking the juice of pounded lettuce leaves for use as a sedative…

For his headaches I reckoned that coarse brown paper with vinegar placed upon the forehead would bring some relief but that only brought cheeky comments from Gyn and Stuart about Barbara having 12 children already and that I regularly offered the remedy for a headache to her before bedtime… Hmm… I ignored that one… 

WATCHING THE ACTIVITIES...

I also suggested a remedy for wind, should Stuart need the lavatory chute… I listed certain spices to be mixed in a pestle and mortar which would cure his problem and offer a pleasant odour too, at which point the conversation became quite hilarious. 

It was all live on the radio, which I still have the recording of… 

A beauty mask for Gyn was then suggested to ward off spots and freckles, which consisted of meal of oats boiled with vinegar and I told her it was actually made in Yardley… “Do you think I need one?” she asked, indignantly. “Not at present, m’lady…” I carefully replied. 

We chatted about the Yardley market and I told Gyn that I didn’t usually buy commodities there personally but often attended to ascertain the local gossip and word of threats to the locality, for in Birmingham recently anti-Royalists had apparently been selling muskets and swords to Parliamentarians. 

Those were troubled times…

NOTE MY BLACK EYE...

Conclusion…

It was a worthwhile morning for Radio WM for sure and Wendy Roberts did a fine job of teaching/presenting for the children from Blackwood School in Streetly, as well as having to be interviewed at the same time…

Yeah, we teachers deserved our beer money in the SLD team…

A while before the day of recording, a set of images was taken of Wendy and me in costume at Blakesley Hall and remarkably, one was chosen to feature in the Radio Times…

FROM THE RADIO TIMES, 1985...

You can even make out a soccer related black eye if you check out my face carefully…

It was a strange moment to turn a page and see oneself in such a well known magazine, albeit dressed in a Sir Thomas Holte costume… 

THE LISTING...

Both the Swan Shopping Centre appearance and the Blakesley Hall feature offered much publicity for Birmingham’s Museums but it was great exposure for the Schools Liaison Department in particular although Jean Evans, the Head of our group was clearly less than impressed by the frivolous comments made by the Radio WM team during the recordings…

I loved it though…

NEXT: being Petros, the Ancient Greek athlete…